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7.27 IN my family of origin, birthdays were big deals.  My Dad always called and said, "how could you be this old - that makes ME old!"  My Mom always sent 3 cards and many kisses!  Being a summer bday kid, there was some sadness about not being around family and schoolmates, but camp was my happy place. Give me a lake and a tennis court and some cheers and teams - I'm set.  I was a good kid and I had many friends and activities. We washed our hair in the lake at camp.  We went to tournaments, sang our heads off, rode on the back of a pickup truck, got in trouble, liked boys.  We bought pukka beads at Weir Beach.  We shared an orange cream soda.  What an innocence! Now it's my birthday again.  But now too, after all the peaks and valleys of my life, and there have been many, I realize it's just one big cheesy experience.  You travel through and the days go slow, the years go fast and whoosh, you're in a new decade and you're suddenly  grateful to just be here.  You give less advice and more compassion; you let the client meet you where she is.  You wait more; you give yourself patience. You get your eyelashes tinted.  My father would say, ah, it will pass.  My mother would say, take it 15 mins at a time. Struggles come and go.  I miss my parents so deeply.  My mother was the most loving and generous there was.  My father was the most fun, funniest, my buddy, my pal.  My mother said stay close - my father said go far. I think that learning about how trauma is stored in the body was my biggest breakthrough as a lifelong learner.  I think that therapy helped me get out of my over-worn grooves of rumination.  I say YOGA has allowed me physical freedom and mental spaces I never imagined.  Aging has given me more aches and pains, but life experience has given me more equanimity.  I really pray that this year all of us can have a little more peace of mind.  The world may be dismal right now, but still, I have hope.

I try to tell my clients and kids that no matter what is going on outside, pay attention to keeping yourself steady on the inside.  The outside has outlandish ups and downs that are out of our control.  The inside keeps the rudder in place.  Routines, nature and self-care really do help. The word from Buddhism that comes to mind often is EQUANIMITY.  I love this word.  It applies to breath, yoga, life, spirit and hard work.  It means literally keeping yourself EVEN.  My daughter has these incredible decisions to make about her future; there's no bad choice.  She has worked hard and opened doors through self-discipline and talent.  But don't roller-coaster your way through the good stuff!  Take time to acknowledge what is best for you using inner wisdom not outside prestige.  The older you get you tend to realize, what's best for you IS what's best all around.  Just like college, it's about the "fit" not the glamour. My young client comes by; we haven't seen each other in person since before the pandemic. Despite loss, heartbreak and disappointment, she is ready to go to college.  Her hopefulness embraces me like a warm summer breeze.  We have done good work together.  She has learned that there is no perfect. She has learned to embrace the grey areas.  She is able to tolerate her own sense of dread for what is to come.  She has deepened her understanding of life.  At the tender age of 17, this is everything!  As Lisa Damour said in New Yorker Magazine recently, “The adolescent mental-health crisis doesn’t end when all teen-agers feel good. It ends when teen-agers have the support they deserve and are able to cope effectively with the distress that they will invariably face.” Knowing one child will make it gives me pause.  It's really something to be present for, I tell my aging self.  "Will you still be my therapist when I'm grown?" she asks tentatively.  "If you want me to," I say wistfully, knowing that the only constant is change. At my recent Airbnb vacation we ran into a family.  They were down to earth and sweet as fresh corn. We were not expecting them to be around and yet nothing to do but learn.  They knew about boats and helped us get around.  We hardly spoke but a message was hidden in plain sight: expect the unexpected.  Suddenly our new friends were frolicking with us and the dog, helping start a fire, unencumbered by social awkwardness as we shared a little sliver of a lake before passing through. High peaks and flooded roads notwithstanding we managed to hike, swim and boat.  The neighbors drifted in and out of my periphery.  I didn't have to talk and I didn't have to listen.  I jumped in.  A hand reached out to guide me back out.  Being 60 didn't make me more afraid.  Being on vacation made me listen to my own rhythm, not the ticking of time passing me by.  I highly recommend it!

After all the talking is the listening. Listening to your own inner wisdom takes time, patience and work.  Being quiet, peaceful and calm is where we can make the best decisions.  As a colleague pointed out to me: if you are, god forbid, in the emergency room, do you want your doctor to be frantic or calm, cool and collected?  Exactly. Inner peace is not something attainable to many and yet we can try.  The voice in your head that says, you're not good enough is whose voice?  How did it get there?  You guessed it, The Body Keeps the Score.  Even if your parents didn't alienate you throughout your childhood, you might have internalized that insecurity when for example teachers said, you're not doing well enough, or a parent moved far away and you were left to conclude you're not good enough for one to stay.  Or you had a desperate breakup and you figured you're simply not lovable.  The law of coin flipping however might say otherwise: that each time you lose is the same chances as the first. The point is you gotta get out there and keep failing or having your heart broken in order to find yourself whole again.  It doesn't seem to work doom scrolling in your room.  We know that ruminating, obsessing, overthinking is part of the teenage-gloom that happens as a brain matures.  So with my own kids I keep on telling them - you can do hard things.  It's not that shocking!  Without these data points of life experience, you have no information on what you want or who you want to be.  Sitting around wondering if you'll ever be someone worthy is not healthy.  Trying new things seems to counteract this stagnation, paralysis and perfectionism.  The novelty of new situations trains your brain that there are other grooves available. Play a different tune!  Walk a different way around the block.  Unblock your senses. My client texts me if it's OK that her boyfriend didn't answer her last text several hours ago, as if his momentary lapse is tantamount to abandonment.  It's not the same thing!  It's just a few hours of work and a break; maybe he doesn't need to be in constant contact.  Seeing yourself make time for nothing is a great way to remember your humanity.  Sit with it. During the pandemic young adults became locked in their heads - an endless loop of worries.  Usually their friends would provide a rudder - to right the ship in the storm - and all together, one giant friend group.  Ezra Klein interviewed a social media and teen expert (Jean Twenge); she said that the uptick in suicidality in teens in 2012 was correlated with some unexpected items.  It's not the phones, it's the isolation and loneliness. The phone rings. You don't have to answer it. You don't have to "come off" as somebody else. But you do have to "lean into" what you're avoiding.  It will give you lots to talk about.  Having touch points, or turning points or transitions can be awkward, but also tremendously life-changing.  At least give yourself the chance to try. As a therapist to teens and young adults I push them a lot.  I talk to their parents (when they allow it), I talk to their schools.  I have had more than one teen reporting agoraphobia.  Save that for when you're old.  Life is for living.  Check in with yourself, do a body scan - are you ready?  It's your Defining Decade.

PHOTO CREDIT: MOMS' DEMAND ACTION Listening to Tara Brach on how to get unstuck and I realize that I have adult separation anxiety.  Why is it so hard to let go of my adult children?  Am I becoming a NUDGE?  As a Jewish mom I better check that! One thing I just researched is that, surprise!: adult children of divorce are more inclined to have separation anxiety with their adult children than others.  Pretty logical.  But we don't have to be stuck in it, Brach says.  There is a meaning and purpose and "why" to getting unstuck.  We don't want to be physically or mentally stuck.  We want to be free from pain.  Step one is convincing yourself that there's a motivation to do this work. The experts say our holding to protect from pain and trauma is actually reinforcing the pathways to pain and trauma.  Better to let go, be present and feel your feelings.  Attend and be curious, expand your awareness; this is brain change.  It's possible!  Self-limiting stories keep us resentful.  Creative and mindful and re-framing beliefs and schema all allow us be less entrapped.  The narrative keeps the story, just as the body keeps the score. I realize that when my dad left, and then left again and again, when we were at a train or plane or automobile, that it perpetuated the anxiety groove in my brain: I came to expect to be left/hurt/abandoned.  This would be my story.  As long as I expected it, I could control it.  If only someone had told me you have a choice!  You can, I can, re-write this: I am worthy of love and safety, not being left behind. My dad even told me the story of Fiddler on the Roof, "Papa, God alone knows when we will see each other again."  Tevvya replies, "Then we will leave it in his hands."  At the train to Siberia.  Kind of awful.  Now this becomes my purpose in marriage: to establish a safe home base for my children.  I have to constantly compromise to keep this up.  But I do.  It's exhausting.  I have sacrificed my own needs many times.  The wrenching violence of our daily lives keeps us in a state of perpetual panic. According to this article: Children often are attached to the familial dynamic of having two parents under the same roof, and when they lose that dichotomy, they lose the stability and certainty that they have grown accustomed to. (https://mensdivorce.com/separation-anxiety/#) What if it happens over and over again?  So this is why it's so hard to say goodbye.  But I know I must. It's the hardest thing watching a piece of yourself, feeling like a part of your body, splinter off and be at large in this dangerous world.  Plenty of reasons to be fearful, whether it's the sky on fire or gun violence or #metoo or worse -- but we cling to safety as best we can, without giving up a free and spontaneous life.  What a challenge!!  Knowing it's possible to change is a very encouraging first step.

I want to fly like an eagle... Songs of the 70s. We are getting old.  Some of my classmates have already passed on.  I am nearing the age when my mother died.  Part of me wants to cry and tell you: don't hold onto anyone - it doesn't last.  Friends, neighbors change, kids develop, grow, this is what's supposed to happen.  But how can it happen?  Do we all need psychedelic mushrooms to realize that time is but an illusion?  Should we go to outer space?  See how small we are?  Does religion give us just enough ritual to distract from our fates?  How is it we have to watch our parents die slowly/quickly - those with brains so strong, they forgot who they are; those with bodies so intrepid they cannot stand alone?  Why does this life take us from everything to nothing?  How did I lose a mother so young?  A father who nestled into my brain's real-estate for 40 plus years of abandonment (over and over)?  How could this be MY story? The sages say leave the past. How do we do this on a daily basis? How do we remember and forget at the same time? What happened between getting the kids ready for pre-school and getting them ready for grad-school? Where did I go?  Does it matter? There's a shred of me left: tennis to pickleball, writing diaries to writing blogs, keeping age-old friends- losing some, love of books to where are my glasses, love of people to complete silence.  Embrace, sustain, sacrifice, all pieces of parenthood, fragments of a rich life, nostalgia and suffering, sorrows upon sorrows.  A pink peony. A sick dog.  Asking for help.  Preparing for adventure - hiding from pain.  How we cope now defines our daily lives.  Rinse.  Repeat.  Try to stay open to the little things.  Try to tackle the big ones.  But don't burn yourself out trying.  Should I contemplate my next move in a decades long battle to flex and stay relevant, or should I do the dishes?  Thank God for routines, self-discipline, freedom and longing, tides come in and out.  "Let creation reveal its secrets by and by" -- (Jackson Browne - Before the Deluge).

Make room for feelings. I just got back from my last child's college graduation.  It was not easy.  Kids drink and party and get exhausted.  They are scared.  Social media is not their issue - their issue is social isolation.  Now that their friends are pursuing their "dreams" what will they do?  Fear takes a grip.  We went through all of these emotions and didn't even know what hit us. But we also stuck it out together.  That's something. Cheers to me for not completely screwing this up.  Cheers to you and your kids too! They may think it's not a big deal to graduate but the time and commitment to something in the larger community is a big deal, especially during a global pandemic. 1. Feelings of loss - my friends are leaving; now what do I do? 2. Loss of control - what will I do with all this worry? 3. Fear of the future - what will the future hold - can I survive on my own? 4. Letting go - who am I and what do I even want? Who is my adult self? (Parents: profound awareness of empty nest, mortality) 5. Fear of the world - will I get killed by stray gunfire?  Will I be safe? 6. Transition/Loss/Change - who will be there for me in this ever-changing landscape? 7. Expectations/Existential dread - will my parents be proud?  Am I good enough to succeed? 8. Push - Pull of dependency - will I miss my family as I move forward without them? 9. What path out of so many - where will the road lead me? 10. Families - can't live with them; can't live without them.  There's no perfect.  Acceptance of the big jumble called life. Then we throw those caps and gowns out, we roll out of town, we return.  Turning, turning with our own reflections of how fleeting growing up is.  Can hardly hold on...  Try not to grasp, as Tara Brach says, just lean into the uncertainty and see where it takes you.

I find myself thinking on death.  So many deaths around me, us.  So much loss and pain.  Your best friend's mother. Your other friend's ex-husband, cancer, parents, children, guns.  It's all too much.  How is it that the will of the people has been silenced by the RIGHT?  The Supreme Court is far more frightening than a drag show. And back-ally abortions are so retro.  Please can't we find our humanity?  Soon you won't be able to sell girl scout cookies if you're a person of color.  Soon women will be reduced to silence.  I recall my mother handing me "The Handmaid's Tale" and saying, it could happen you know.  Just like that.  Just like Nazi Germany says my husband of 30 years.  What kind of dystopia is this?  It's actually worse than I thought.  Last night on the news it was more than I could take.  They actually made the analogy of hate speech to concentration camps.  Here we are. I have kids coming in from age 12 and up.  They are worried about their "triggers."  One kid said she was triggered, by me, when I said she seemed like a nice normal teenager.  Not cool.  Another rejected therapy saying she needed more structure.  When asked what, she couldn't say.  I am starting to feel more scared.  Not anxious - scared.  During the pandemic I put my head down and worked.  Worked through my own losses.  Worked with others and theirs.  Taught myself about TRAUMA and even met the esteemed Bessel van der Kolk.  I learned many things and gave a class on "Yoga for Anxiety" at my local community center.  I left my comfort zone to comfort others.  I helped a woman who's family member was murdered.  But there's a limit to this re-traumatization for all of us.  Things are not going well.  Even the late night comedians are shocked by the things they riff on.  Students accusing teachers, girls accusing boys, everyone on the defensive.  I had to google what the "Thin Blue Line" Flag meant on my neighbor's yard. Yesterday - a first - an 11 year old client told me her entire scenario if there were to be a school shooter. 11.  She would not cluster together with her friends; she would climb atop a cabinet and hide.  I sure as hell never ever thought of school this way.  School was my sanctuary.  School should be your sanctuary. It doesn't make sense to me to counsel people to avoid school.  But rightfully parents are fearful.  Can we move time back, eliminate social media, try to fix authoritarianism and racism and sexism? Not in a single therapy session we can't.  We can only provide comfort to the aggrieved.  But the aggrieved keep coming in droves. I do blame Trump, although my kids say that's too facile.  He simply lit the match - the hate was already there. But now there's no putting it away.  Seems like polarity will split us into two countries.  Who will suffer? The hardworking people in middle class, poverty, refugees etc.  Same old story.  Greed is Good. Capitalizism run amock.  It's time to fix our broken healthcare system.  A "Marshall Plan" for quality medical care.  A plan so that you don't have to keep your crappy day job when you have cancer.  A plan to pay your bills or work from home or attend your child's little league game after work.  A plan to build community, to help the underserved, the children of the future.  The children, the ones getting shot at every day, they are the future.  Do you get it yet?

How do you get unstuck from feeling like you're underwater? In this world of mass home-grown gun violence that terrorizes our own children, whom clearly we value less than the need to have a gun (how does this even make sense?), and the gross news cycle that spits out one man's name over and over to sell stuff to you, how do we cope?  Addicted to your phone, where all the good people who know how to do things right are on vacation, how do we cope?  With the the pitiful state of war in many small and large countries, the climate dis-regulation and the bipolar weather, how do we cope?  Watching the violence on TV that mimics our own worst natures, how do we cope? Sounds like the four questions. My friends the answer is to engender hope.  To be creative.  To make community.  To work less.  No one has ever come to my office and said, "I'm here because I wish I had worked more."  Au contraire.  We are wired for attachment: to our parents and friends and lovers.  So how do you make your life meaningful in a sea of confusion? If you're an adolescent and you see the world around you going to pot - indeed imploding - how do you find the motivation to carry on?  My father wisely said everything is cyclical.  Wait it out.  Sit with it.  Be patient with yourself.  Be a container.  Be mindful.  But wait - why is nothing working?  Did you try to change anything?  I am trying to only do one thing at a time - because that's all you can do anyway.  What did you change today?  Walk the other way around the block next time. If you've listened to the masters of Trauma: Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk (whom I got to meet in person), or Tara Brach, Gabor Mate, you will note that trauma lives in the body. You will soon realize that if our children are seeing mass shooters and bloody children, their classmates, our future, lying dead before them, and they begin to develop school anxiety, avoidance behaviors, sulky moods and post-pandemic stress, this is REAL.  It's not TV.  It's not 13 Reasons Why -- more like 13 Reasons Why Not.  Suicide is real.  No other civilized country in the world operates like this. Many well-tested interventions exist that can reduce gun violence.  It's not that shocking.  With no controls whatsoever on purchasing a deadly weapon which only purpose is to commit murder, what we are seeing is daily tragedy - what do you think that does to people, besides make them numb?  Last month the shooter was at a college near where my daughter is at college.  Which one will be next?  If we do nothing, nothing changes.  Remember this. Remember the mental health crisis of children in 2023 because in ten or 20 years you won't wonder why they can't manage - you'll know.  It was our collective inaction.

INTRO: Courtney was the kind of 10th grade client that I completely enjoyed.  She was cute, clever and motivated. So when she began to have an issue that ballooned into a crisis, I was a bit surprised. Her parents found out that she had shared a nude picture with a boy she knew, and he then proceeded to share it with the whole school. The following week, Courtney landed in the hospital from sheer humiliation. Thankfully, Courtney was able to get immediate help and went on to lead a productive life -- forever scarred by her simple mistake, blamed and mortified for what another kid didn’t yet understand about privacy. It is so convenient for friends, family, therapists, teachers and parents to say, social media be damned, especially after an episode like Courtney’s. I agree with what they’re saying, after all, it’s legitimate to protect your children from porn, abuse, catfishing, danger and predators. My biggest parenting regret is not removing the phones from their hands at 10p, like many parents do. Sleep is the number one predictor of functioning in my book and too many kids simply cannot resist the allure of talking to their friends all night. I worked for early internet start-ups in the health and wellness space for some time, so I cannot readily cast away its benefits. Imagine you had breast cancer in 1998 and wanted to meet others going through the same thing - we invented that! At iVillage.com we developed online support forums for millions of cancer patients! There was no one we couldn’t reach, solving the problem of mental health access for the first time. For me and thousands of others the internet provided research, group support, organizational capabilities like syncing calendars, and so much more - a meetup with my best friend from 4th grade, for example. (https://www.nbc26.com/news/local-news/the-complex-relationship-between-social-media-and-mental-health#:~:text=Social%20media%20can%20be%20a%20virtual%20window%20into%20people%27s%20lives,cause%20more%20harm%20than%20good) MIDDLE SCHOOL: We know the stats on texting (teen girls - 80 texts per day! - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/04/28/teen-girls-text-more-than-boys/) - and girls do it far more than boys.  Is texting bad?  Not really if it’s used for, “honey I forgot the milk, be home in 10.”  But my middle school clients, always girls, spend entire sessions reading their text exchanges to me.  According to Lisa Damour, my favorite author on this subject, “Texting is a very powerful way to have conversations with boys, and there’s no shame in that,” says Dr. Damour. “As long as kids are talking about their feelings, it doesn’t matter to me how it’s happening,” --(https://grownandflown.com/lisa-damour-get-teen-boys-open-up-deep-conversation/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CTexting%20is%20a%20very%20powerful,Damour%20says.) Middle schoolers are trying to learn how to communicate, and patients like Courtney typically do a damn good job of it. It enables them to clarify their own voice, sometimes pause (leave “unread”), and then work through relational drama without the terror of having to say it face to face. It seems like a skill worth having. In therapy with teens, it turns out, we need to help them navigate, not shut down. HIGH SCHOOL: In high school, girls get busy with activities, sports and grades. The competition where I live (near NYC) is fierce. Knowingly or not, they vie for hierarchy among peers that can stretch from just being a bad-ass to being the smartest or dumbest or prettiest in the class. Much of their doom scrolling leads to listlessness, boredom and shorter attention spans. But it also helps them learn fact from fiction and gain judgment: view a painting for an art class, or see a citation from a real judge on the supreme court, or watch a science experiment from their living rooms. Looking at others’ luxury vacations creates “FOMO” and yet the phone can also be a godsend to organize and color code your schedule for a kid with dyslexia, for example. Some kids use it to set alarms for their meds and their mindfulness. One kid from my town created a travel app that made him enough money to go to MIT. Another client uses the phone to check her blood sugar and her diet for type I diabetes. Still another is using an app designed for CBT-i (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia). COLLEGE: As for beyond high school, I had a client, Darien, who couldn’t write an email after graduating from an ivy league school, that’s how paralyzed she was. Now she works at a law firm. Learning to live with our technology might be a good idea. Apps that show me my daily usage are a bit scary - in the service of “I’m working” I have literally lost hours of my life, and my vision. (I actually need special glasses to help focus). Addiction is real and video gaming can really suck your soul, especially if it’s done all night. Which social media (https://seopressor.com/social-media-marketing/types-of-social-media/) is all bad? Facebook has fake ads. But they have controls. Instagram and TikToc have provocative videos, they too have controls. Snapchat is short acting, like a teen taking one drink at a party. It’s not good, but it won’t last. What about Twitter, the adult version of a bad playdate. But teens can also learn whom to trust. What is the difference between a reputable news outlet and a screeching rant by an excommunicated politician? Let’s find out. One day, they might even make a career of it. POST COLLEGE: What about dating sites for young adult clients? How does that cause harm? Ghosting has never been so easy. Do you delete it and stop trying? Sure you could meet someone at the local bar, or through a friend of a friend. Enter Covid-19, and dependency on alcohol, suddenly Hinge doesn't sound so bad. What’s wrong with LinkedIn? I get notifications from them every day for my dream job. Yet how many people really did land their dream job this way? Linking to everyone I have ever worked with helps me out. It helps me remember what my value is when I’m too flummoxed to present myself. As a therapist we must stay open to growth and potential. We are taught not to impose our beliefs. So if my patient is on social media all day and night what would be more appropriate - to scold her and instruct the parents to remove all screens, or perhaps teach her that rest is critical to development, as is exercise, diet, spirituality and creativity (eg. self care). One of my clients is doing an online masters program in a special kind of painting that she posts weekly on Instagram. Because she has a significant trauma history, her present situation doesn’t allow for her to visit museums or lectures or art studio classes. But she can paint and post and maybe one day sell those paintings online. What gives her hope is the freedom to expose her work to the world without having to leave her room. Or the client who is ill and lives in a rural setting - she can talk to her BFF (and me) without having to drive. These are the many ways a young, isolated person may reframe the online world as an adaptation to her struggles, rather than the enemy. No one is suggesting that you stalk your ex and go through his emails, or engage in illegal/aggressive or shameful bullying, or worse. What I say to my colleagues who work with young people is this - save your judgment and let’s figure out what the pitfalls and potential are in each situation, then help our clients to filter-in what is meaningful, useful and practical for their communities; and filter-out what doesn’t serve them.

Sandra was 34, had just left a bad relationship of stuckness and sadness.  Her friends had left.  Her parents were never in her corner.  We tried for one year for her to leave.  It was hardest to leave the cat.  Now alone, she had wandered into an office romance - that once-in-a-lifetime connection she had longed for. Her new partner had just done the impossible: he met another woman and fell in love.  How could the universe have delivered this unfair affair? How was the world so cruel in its choices.  Well for one thing, magical thinking does not make your future; you do.  What could I tell her?  So lost in the content of her isolation, I failed to see that she needed a hand, not a lecture. I simply said, don't you deserve to have a family and a future of your own?  Her psychic said to stick it out.  Good things come to those who wait.  (I don't mind psychics; only that they charge more than I do!).  They are in the business of hope, just as I am. The girl started sobbing and hyperventilating.  She ended the session. Oh boy did I blow it, I thought, as always.  The insecurity that continued throughout my life was there for the default reaction.  My fault.  My fault!  Then I overcharged her by mistake.  No worries, she said.  My full schedule made it a burden to think that this was part of the therapeutic process.  I consult an ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) professional.  She said, focus on how her fear of loneliness and lack of connection gets in the way of her getting what she really wants.  There were charts and graphs involved in what I already knew - I had struck a nerve. Nervous about our next session I simply said: I'm sorry.  And she forgave me.  She understood that I only wanted to protect her, but couldn't.  I get attached too. Attachment at the core of our capabilities. A beautiful girl, only stymied by her inability to go on Hinge yet again.  But those dating apps are treacherous.  Guys still want what they want.  You would think they'd have evolved by now.  Yet the men of the world are anxious, aggressive and angry, sometimes armed (and alcoholic).  The four A's I call them.  I used to like men.  They flirted in the workplace, rubbed my shoulders passing by, now all microaggressions (#metoo).  They didn't deserve me.  But it was fun.  Then I ran into a boss who wanted more, and wouldn't stop.  Losing a good chunk of my 20's with him, the married boss, I desperately wanted to spare my client the same wasteful box in the attachment matrix.  But her journey is not mine.  I am happily married 30 years now, with two beyond beautiful children without whom I couldn't imagine life.  I live in my client's fantasy; of wanting things to work out/even out/be fair despite being treated badly. But her boss and mine, all those years ago, would prevent our own happiness for theirs.  Is that love?  No, my friends, it's transference and magical thinking.  I am projecting my experience on to her regressed teen girl dreams of a white picket fence, two kids and yes, a cat.  But no life is without pain and suffering.  And nothing shows up until it teaches us what we need to learn (Pema Chodron).  So what is it that we both need to learn?  That we are enough, we are worthy of love and commitment and so much more.  I didn't get everything I wanted.  Does anyone?  My fancy friends seem to have second homes and vacations and security that they inherited or married or figured out.  But it's not about fancy.  Life is struggle for all of us - it comes at a price.  The price is sorrow, and then rising from the ashes.  Like a phoenix, we carry on. For my parents' legacy, I march forward toward older age and wisdom.  Nothing is going to get fixed with a diagram or a grid. More like grit.  So I tell Sandra patiently, stay with the feelings.  They will soon pass away into dust.

If you're hard on yourself like I am, why not make the new year about change and growth?  It's not about eating less, or stopping your OCD habits, or starting an exercise workout, or playing pickleball, although these activities help enormously. It's about doing you in a way that feels more calm, dependable and meaningful.  Self-care is not a bad word.  It's not lying on the couch in a coma.  It's not getting a manicure.  Although these things help as well.  It's about integrating the good with the bad, practicing wisdom and equanimity, generosity, patience, and care, with yourself first, then with others.  It's about showing up for yourself and giving things time.  It's about slowing down, yes, in our fast-paced world.  Is it about putting down your phone?  Sure.  But if you're like me, and need to read the big print version on your phone, then read. Or reaching out to a high school friend with whom you've re-connected, then keep the phone.  Social media, I have said from early on, is not the enemy.  The enemy is within. My friends, the biggest change I have made is letting things go.  Things I cannot change or control.  In my mind and body together in harmony.  In stopping running around just to run around, and in starting meditating.  Meditation in daily life. Routines and structure, meaning and work, risks and rewards.  Body positive.  Outdoor therapy.  Online groups.  These are the The Body Keeps the Score activities that create space.  The space in your thoughts that lets you know that pausing is beneficial because it gives you a moment of objectivity.  Young adults that I work with lean on black and white thinking because their brains are in rapid acceleration.  Their amygdala (the regulator) and the synapses (the communicator) are firing in spite of them being still so young and vulnerable, and it's confusing.  Parents often mistake this avalanche of emotion as negative, but this is supposed to happen.  What's not supposed to happen is sitting in your room for two years contemplating who liked your photo.  It couldn't have been prevented, this pandemic.  It robbed us of time, money and people.  It took and took and we felt taken. But we (a)rise, as the powerful Maya Angelou stated. Here we are in mid-town Manhattan.  Here we are with friends.  Here I am with more clients in a row, on wait lists, and I'm 6-0!!!  Who could believe that a social worker supporting her family could thrive at this time?  Doors somehow open if you venture toward, lean in and listen, look for that Blue Heron on the lake.  Don't let it fool you into a photo bomb; rather, take it easy and wait for your moment.  Hold the breath for a second longer and see: you can tolerate loss because it's what's happening.  It's the only thing that is happening.  People seem to fade away, but all new people are coming, and you, yes you, can change the world in an instant. My clients are doing well.  They really are making progress.  Why?  Because they are accepting and owning their lives.  It's yours to hold.  We are watching "The Affair," a wonderful series that experiments with point-of-view.  The theme song says, the only thing to do in this life/ is be the wave that you are/ and then sink back into the ocean. (Fiona Apple)"  At first we thought it said "be the way that you are" which sounded so wrong.  Upon further investigation, the song really hits it out of the park with its staccato rhythm, and force toward inevitability.  Death is not dramatic, in my experience.  It is lonely and quiet.  An absence of a life force so incredible that it returns to dust.  I believe in ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  Not some fancy up-above that is just a fairy tale.  The earth is good; it grounds us.  Be the good earth.

What is going on here? People are still: tired, cold, burnt-out, lonely, stressed, bored, stuck and unmotivated.  Kids.  Especially teens.  But they're back at school.  Why OH Why is this holiday season turning out to be like many others - damp, lackluster and downright dreadful.  It's not the weather. CEOs made 399% more than workers in the past few years.  Think about that.  So the rest of us are just working, shopping, spending, staying home, skipping much needed vacations, getting COVID and crying ourselves to sleep.  What is wrong with this picture?  What is wrong with America?  Young people are committing suicide in record numbers. 3,000 lost their lives to gun violence, while other watched in panic, suffering long after the violence washes over them.  Then look at the TV.  Guns, guns, guns.  Then tWitch/Boss shoots himself in the head at the age of 40 leaving 3 stunning children fatherless.  WHY??? I guess if I knew the answer I would know the answer.  I don't.  I worry about a person last week that my team rescued from throwing himself in front of the subway.  I worry about the girl going up on her meds and getting activated.  I worry about the guy who mixes every substance and expects to wake up and go to work the next day un-phased.  I worry about the teenager whose parents don't believe in medication even though she's had depression symptoms for over one year.  I worry for the losses stacking up on kids too young.  What will this mean for future generations? I am parent-less now.  It's sometimes exuberant not to have to check in or check out.  But my assumptions from childhood were so naive.  That people would stick around.  That people would have my back.  That I would know love and security; adventure and risk.  Not meant to be.  I sacrificed for my family and I asked for little in return.  Two summers ago I found an Airbnb cabin in upstate New York to visit.  You could walk out to tiny pond/lake and swim around it, come back, hang out, and then go back in again.  That was my sanctuary.  I went three times during the pandemic.  The only problem was a boom-boom explosive noise in the distance that the dog made clear was not for him.  Otherwise, a perfect idyll.  A time to do nothing. All we can do is carry on.  Let the memories of your people near and far and gone carry you through all your days with the light of Hanukkah.  May the glowing candles remind you of your grandmother Rose, who cherished you.  Who created you.  Who lives in you.